Business Week in Review

Nordstrom, the Seattle-based department store chain, steered clear of Massachusetts for years.

But the company and a mall partner, Simon Property Group, was busy this past week showcasing its local plans to build upon the success of Nordstrom's first store here that it opened in Natick last year.

Simon unveiled its expansion plans for the South Shore Plaza to accommodate a Nordstrom store that would open there two years from now. And Nordstrom opened its second Bay State store in the Burlington Mall, another Simon property, amidst a heavy marketing blitz.

Poor housing numbers

Hopefully, the arrival of spring will thaw out the state's frozen housing market, because the figures for February home sales weren't promising.

The Warren Group, a South Boston-based firm that reports real estate data, found that the state's median price for a single-family home fell by 8.8 percent in one year to $301,000 - the largest year-over-year drop in more than 17 years.

The Warren Group also found that sales volume fell by 19 percent from February 2007. That said, Greater Boston is still one of the five strongest markets in the country, according to an index of the country's 20 largest metro markets.

Pushing liquefied-gas plan

The proponents of a proposed LNG terminal for Fall River aren't ready to give up yet.

The Weaver's Cove Energy developers' determination was evident as they unveiled an alternative option that would involve accepting the liquefied natural gas at an offshore platform in Mt. Hope Bay and shipping it via a pipeline to a storage area onshore. But that change failed to win over many of the skeptics in Fall River, who still worry about potential safety hazards.

Clear Channel deal in doubt

A $19.5 billion blockbuster deal to buy radio station operator Clear Channel Communications ran into some major static when a group of banks that had backed the arrangement when credit was easy to get are starting to balk now that the deal is about to close.

Clear Channel and the two Boston-based private equity firms, Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners, that plan to buy Clear Channel won a judge's ruling in Texas to keep the banks at the table. But the deal's future remains unclear.